Another week at work

Monday

Get up. Attempt to get motivated to do web design work. Go back to bed.

Tuesday

Jamie’s back at work in the shop, having taken a week’s holiday directly after my two weeks. As a result, this is the first I’ve seen of him for three weeks. We have an entertaining day, writing fake price tickets for members of staff. Attributes listed include:

• “A Nikon at heart, baby.” (For an ex-staff member whose bias towards Nikon was legendary.)
• “Paints like a pro.” (If the world was fair, our assistant manager would be a professional artist.)
• “Likes his coffee.” (There’s a Caffe Nero round the corner that does very well out of Jamie.)
• “Raindrops keep falling on his head.” (Osman whistles this tune constantly.)
• “Mm, jazz.” (For David.)

Wednesday

The Canon 30D is announced. I discover that the improvements over the 20D are in areas completely irrelevant to me and feel a lot better. (Having your technology superceded is never a nice experience.)

Thursday

A lady from Kenya comes into the shop and asks for directions to New Oxford Street. Poor woman – New Oxford Street is in London, where she’d just come from by bus.

Friday

Jamie and I entertain ourselves with a secondhand Nikon FE2 and some Ilford XP2 film (colour-process monochrome, comes out sepia). We discover some 3D glasses sent to us by Olympus to promote the new 3D feature of some of their cameras. These and some perculiar expressions entertain us for most of the day. The challenge is to sell an Olympus camera while wearing them. Neither of us gather up enough courage to try it, though our boss promises us a cookie if we do.

Saturday (today)

I help babysit an autistic boy whose mother is doing something “boring” in another part of the library. For once, I don’t get out any films or CDs, as I have Spooks season two on DVD (ten hours’ worth of episodes) already. One more benefit of working in a library though: if you forget your reading book chances are they have a copy.

Currently listening to Beck – Runners Dial Zero

Matthew @ 15:34, February 25, 2006 to Diary | Permalink | Comments (11)

Needs oil?

For some odd reason, the mouse at this computer has started squeaking.

Matthew @ 08:59, February 23, 2006 to Geek | Permalink | Comments (3)

Movable Type 3.2

Following on from my last post, I decided I should finally get round to installing Movable Type 3.2. So I did. First off the upgrade script didn’t work as it couldn’t load the Javascript needed to do the upgrade. I edited my new central config file (turns out you now have to specify the static directory even if it’s the same as the cgi directory) and got it to work. But none of the functions in the control panel worked once I’d managed to log in. Schoolboy error – I’d forgotten to clean my cache of the old Javascript and CSS and it was still using the old stuff. So now everything is fixed and Movable Type 3.2 is beautiful. You won’t have noticed because it’s on all the old entries, but I’ve been getting about twenty pieces of spam a day (luckily not as obscene as in the past). 3.2 has a built-in junk feature, which will block pretty much all of it. Why didn’t I do this sooner? It took all of twenty minutes. (Answer: the same reason I don’t write twenty minute blog entries every day. You go on for five minutes, saying “I don’t have the time to do this or that”, and stay for two hours, always meaning to go off in five minutes.)

All I have to do now is upgrade my templates to be more efficient, and we’re sorted.

Matthew @ 16:20, February 20, 2006 to Geek | Permalink | Comments (0)

Things I've learnt this week

• The Libertines actually have a couple of good songs
• Disposing of illegal CD copies found in rented CD cases should not be done by snapping them in half. (I think I’ll be cleaning up the pieces for weeks to come.)
• Even multi-million-pound professional law firms can have cheap, terribly designed unprofessional websites
• Intelligent, theologically brilliant people can be completely ignorant when it comes to science (this guy for example). Isn’t it time Christians realised that the Bible and science don’t contradict each other? Just because God sustains the creation continuously doesn’t mean he can’t choose to make the Earth warmer…
• The Mighty Boosh second series isn’t as good as the first one, simply because it’s cruder. Still funny though, and now I have a signed DVD box set after meeting Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding in Borders!
• Over-heating recipes involving fromage frais creates cheese
• However good your intentions are, getting up at nine o’clock after a late night doesn’t happen unless you have a very good alarm
• Blog entries don’t write themselves. Or rather, they can write themselves, but only if you actually sit down to write them first.

Currently listening to Feeder – Buck Rogers

Matthew @ 12:52, February 20, 2006 to Miscellaneous | Permalink | Comments (11)

Posting patterns

Looking back on my archived entries, some interesting patterns have emerged. It seems that the months of 2005 with the most entries are June and March (27 and 26 entries respectively), which happened to be the months I was (supposedly) revising for A levels and mock exams. This does not bode well for my university grades, but readers of this blog may well notice more frequent entries once I actually get down to some proper university-level slacking.

Matthew @ 21:20, February 15, 2006 to Miscellaneous | Permalink | Comments (3)

Films this holiday

I’m coming to the end of two weeks’ holiday. During the holiday I have watched rather a lot of films. Some of them have been good, and some of them not so good. Here’s a roundup:

Mission Impossible 2

Nowhere near as good as the first one, but an adequate way to waste a couple of hours. Unlike the first one, you figure out the plot twists half an hour before, not half an hour after they happen.

The Mighty Boosh, series one

Not a film, but far superior to anything else I’ve watched this holiday. I’m attempting to get tickets for the stage show.

The Third Man

A classic film that perhaps I was expecting too much of. I enjoyed it, but kept on thinking there would be another twist somewhere. Has the immortal line about cuckoo clocks which, according to Wikipedia, isn’t even accurate. Recommended, but not as strongly as it was recommended to me. The music is excellent.

The Talented Mr Ripley

A film about guilt, and it portrays it well. It’s a very interesting film, partly in that you’re not sure whether you want Ripley to get away with what he’s doing or not. The choice to give Ripley more of a conscience compared to the book makes it much more interesting.

Madagascar

A kids’ animation that fails to be interesting for adults, with a few exceptions. There’s a brilliant gag about half way through about Planet of the Apes, which was the funniest joke of the film. On the whole, it’s slapstick vegetarian propaganda.

I, Robot

Pretty reasonable sci-fi thriller, in that it has a twist. Note to film directors: sci-fi is just showing off special effects without some kind of twist or surprise. That said, it wasn’t that much of a revelation. Will Smith is better than usual (not that he’s ever really bad). Oh, and it claims to be based on Isaac Asimov, but isn’t.

Four Weddings and a Funeral

Not as good as Notting Hill, but Rowan Atkinson’s vicar is memorable (in a good way).

Charade

Superior sixties thriller. I’ve always wanted to say “Superior” in a review. Anyway, it’s very good, and even though I’d seen it before couldn’t remember what happened.

High Society

Musical comedy featuring Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong. A classic definitely worth watching.

Currently listening to Switchfoot – Happy is a Yuppie Word

Matthew @ 11:14, February 9, 2006 to Reviews | Permalink | Comments (4)

Doomed!

After installing the latest version of Gnome, I noticed some small changes.

Matthew @ 18:07, February 7, 2006 to Geek | Permalink | Comments (5)

There's always hope

Today I went out into the freezing cold to oil my bike chain and work out the rusty bits with my fingers. The phrase “oddly satisfying” is overused, but this was. So at least I can do something practical. I always imagined my bike breaking down aged thirty and having to call up my dad to figure out how to fix it.

Matthew @ 17:39, February 4, 2006 to Diary | Permalink | Comments (0)

Visit to Sheffield

I kind of forgot to mention before I went that I was going to Sheffield for a few days – better late than never I guess. I’ve been at a youthwork training course. During the course I learnt many things, including:

• the reason vegetarians are wrong. “Well, it’s obvious if God didn’t want us to eat the animals he wouldn’t have made them out of meat!”
• the importance of asking a variety of questions in a discussion. (“What’s grey, fluffy and has a long tail?” “Well, I know it must be Jesus but it sounds like a squirrel.”)

I’ve also spent time with good friends of my family who are currently playing host to two university students. These students, big fans of the O.C., decided they were going to “convert” me during my stay. (They almost managed it – I didn’t watch quite enough to get hooked, though if I knew when it was on I may yet fall under the influence.) I also taught two members of the household how to use their iBooks a bit better (having never owned one) and studied the maths of team building and small groups.

Awesome God arrived today – expect a review shortly. I’m on holiday though, so I may sleep more than usual.

Matthew @ 20:18, February 2, 2006 to Miscellaneous | Permalink | Comments (10)